06/03/2018 Newsnight

The Foreign Secretary laid

into the Russian State today

as we await to hear what has

befallen the one time double agent,

former MI6 spy, and Russian colonel

Sergei Skripal and his daughter

Yulia, who are still

critically ill in hospital.

We're live from Salisbury.

I am in the city finding out about

the man who, we understand, it chose

Salisbury for its low crime rate and

his daughter who moved freely

between Russia and the UK.

So as the counter terrorism unit

in the Met takes over the case,

what do we actually know?

As the foreign secretary talks

about Russia as a 'malign force'

on the international scene,

the former British spy and his

daughter fight for their lives.

We'll be hearing from the chair

of the foreign affairs select

committee, and the former security

minister Baroness Neville Jones.

Also tonight, the Bank

of England Chief Economist

on addressing its elitist past?

I was probably one of the first

vintages that did not go

to Oxford or Cambridge.

That did not go to a public school.

That might come at things

from slightly different angles.

The bank I joined might not have

valued that as much.

And this...

If you look simply at social media,

you will see hundreds and hundreds

and hundreds of videos.

You need to know where and when each

one of those bits of evidence...

Was recorded.

The architects turned forensic data

detectives who investigate

human rights abuses.

Good evening.

Tonight Sergei Skripal -

a former colonel

in Russian Military Intelligence

who was convicted of passing

state secrets to MI6,

and his 33-year-old daughter

Yulia, are still in a critical

condition in hospital in Salisbury.

In hospital too is one

of the emergency services personnel

who attended the scene

when they were found

unconscious in the town.

The military research facility

at Porton Down is believed to be

examining unknown material,

and the Counter Terrorism Policing

Network at the Met is now in charge

of the investigation,

but so far we know nothing

about what happened to them,

if they were poisoned,

or, if they were, by whom.

That didn't stop the Foreign

Secretary Boris Johnson

addressing the Commons to say

that the disturbing incident

had echoes of the death

of Alexander Litvinenko and that

Russia, is "in many respects

a malign and disruptive force."

I'm joined by our Diplomatic Editor

Mark Urban, who has news

of a development tonight.

What have you been hearing? We have

known since Sunday afternoon when

this happened that Sergei and Yulia

were in critical condition. This

phrase has been consistently use.

What I am hearing tonight is despite

the sending of those samples to

Porton Down, that they still do not

know what poisoned this pair of

individuals on Sunday. They are very

worried about this. One said to me,

we are treating the symptoms rather

than causes and that is not a good

direction to be going on. Another

person said to me, that Sergei

Skripal was not in a good way and

there is a lot of concern about

their condition could worsen.

Thank

you. We will join you shortly.

We'll hear more from Mark Urban

shortly but now let's go live

to Salisbury where our correspondent

Katie Razzall has been looking

into the life of Sergei Skripal

and his daughter, Yulia.

Hello. I have been spending the day

in Salisbury trying to find out

about Sergei and why he chose to

live in Wiltshire in this city

predominantly known for its

wonderful cathedral. Today, things

continued almost as normal, the

market was on in the city centre,

although passers-by did appear

perplexed and been used and even a

little fearful to see parts of that

centre cordoned off and gardened --

guarded by the police. I learned

more about Yulia, who we now know

was found with her father when the

pair fell ill on Sunday afternoon.

Family and friends have told us that

although Yulia originally moved to

the UK to live with her family, she

missed Russia and now lives in

Moscow and has worked for various

multi-nationals including Pepsi. She

is the only surviving child of

Sergei Skripal. His son died,

reportedly of liver failure just

last year, his wife had died of

cancer here in the UK just five

years before.

Amongst the graves in a cemetery

in the Wiltshire city of Salisbury

lies Lyudmila Skripal.

Wife of the former Russian

colonel Sergei Skripal.

Across the grass we found

the resting place of the couple's

son who died, according

to relatives, in suspicious

circumstances in Saint

Petersburg last year.

Two Russians buried on British soil.

Their closest living relatives now

fighting for their lives

in the local hospital.

A father brought to the UK

in a spy exchange in 2010,

we discovered today the woman found

beside him in the centre

of Salisbury on Sunday afternoon

was his 33-year-old daughter Yulia.

The Skripal house was being

guarded by officers today.

A quiet cul-de-sac now

the focus of huge attention.

Newsnight has been told by a family

friend that Sergei Skripal chose

to relocate to this city

because he believed it was a good

area with a low crime rate.

We understand initially the family

moved here to Salisbury where both

adult children were able to travel

back and forth between Russia

and Wiltshire freely,

despite their father's banishment.

A family friend told Newsnight

they believed Yulia had

missed her home country.

They said they thought

she had returned to Russia.

Then in 2014 she was back in the UK

working at a hotel in Southampton,

before moving again to Russia.

We were tipped off that the city's

Railway social club has played host

to the former Russian spy.

A source had told Newsnight Mr

Skripal's only friends

were in British intelligence

but here we saw his application

for membership.

A sign perhaps that he was trying

to find some kind of local life.

It tells me that he applied for

membership on the 22nd of October.

That was when we posted

it on the board.

For other people to say yes or no

to him being a member of the club.

Then it went to the committee

and they decided on the 15th

of November that yes,

he was a member, could be a member.

And so subsequently we issued him

with a membership card.

Salisbury's inhabitants are unused

to being at the centre

of an international incident.

With police today

confirming a development.

You will be aware this afternoon

the Metropolitan Police have

confirmed that due to the unusual

circumstances the counterterrorism

network will be leading this

investigation, as it has

the specialist capability

and expertise to do so.

It is important to reiterate

they have not declared this

as a terrorist incident.

As at this stage they are

keeping an open mind

as to what has happened.

The police are an unusually

visible presence here.

They've closed the local

branch of Zizzi's.

It is assumed Mr Skripal

and his daughter must have visited

the restaurant on Sunday.

They were then captured on CCTV

walking down this alley.

This footage taken less

than half an hour before

they were found slumped on a bench.

That bench hidden by a tent.

Whatever samples have been recovered

from Mr Skripal and his daughter

in hospital are being analysed

at Porton Down, the chemical

and biological warfare facility

a few miles from here.

It's been reported that

Mr Skripal had voiced concerns

that he could be the subject

of an assassination attempt.

But one family friend told Newsnight

they believe Yulia Skripal was not

worried enough about her own safety.

Both remain tonight in a critical

condition in intensive care.

Mark's still here.

Have you got any more information

about his life in the UK?

I have heard some similar things to

the line that Katie picked up, that

for years, his social life if you

can call it that, revolve largely

around MI6 people who were looking

after him. Apparently they were

frequent visitors and I am told it

is part of what they regard as the

after-care package, that it is a

lifelong bond with someone who has

given information. The daughter and

the sun travels back and forth a lot

and I have heard some indications

that she may have been back, Yulia

that is, for the anniversary last

week, the 1st of March, it was

Sasha's, the Sun's birth date and

that was going to be a particularly

difficult time for Mr Skripal and

that may well be why she was with

him and given him support over those

few days. It may also be that that

was the last time that some of his

friends from British intelligence

were there as well.

Tell me about

the significance of the graves being

in Salisbury.

From what one can

gather, because he lived in a fairly

isolated way, these were a very

important part of his life. We know

that his son died while in St

Petersburg and clearly efforts were

made to bring the body back to the

UK, so that he could be buried here

and so that Mr Skripal could grieve

at his grave.

Some of the political reaction

and some of the other

recent cases where Russia

was allegedly involved...

Until we get some definite

indication on this, everyone will

make assumptions because of

Litvinenko and some of the other

incidents where people have been

targeted. That is the problem now,

in a way, it may be that there was a

list of 14 compiled as a -- as

suspicious deaths, and because of

what happened, the presumption

immediately goes to Russian

organised crime intelligence

services and was this an

assassination.

Thank you very much

indeed.

Earlier I spoke to the Conservative

MP Tom Tugenhadt, chair

of the Foreign Affairs Select

Committee.

I'm terribly sorry, you have got

your piece first.

It is too early to speculate as to

the precise nature of the crime or

attempted crime that has taken place

in Salisbury yesterday. But I know

members will have their suspicions.

And what I will say to the house is

that if those suspicions proved to

be well founded then this government

will take whatever measures we deem

necessary to protect the lives of

the people in this country, our

values and our freedoms.

A tough

statement from the Foreign Secretary

with its reference to crime

committed in Salisbury and

potentially highly embarrassing if

Russia had nothing to do with it.

But borrowers had clearly been

briefed by the police and

intelligence services. The Russian

embassy took umbrage at his

statement, the press secretary

commenting...

But the Russians have acted before.

Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned by

the Russian state an inquest ruled

and back case has ended up defining

Anglo Russian relations for the best

part of a decade.

I think it is

inevitable that people will suspect

that Russia is involved and I and

others are being very careful not to

say that we are quite clear that

this was the Russian state,

authorised all the way to the top.

We cannot know that. As I say, I

think Russian protests of innocence

would be more convincing if there

was not this long-term pattern of

using this sort of poisoning as a

way of getting rid of enemies of the

state.

And in addition to the

successful assassinations there have

been other attempts. In 2008, we

reported that MI5 had stopped an

attempt to killed far as Berezovsky.

This man came here to kill me and my

life was in danger here. In

life was in danger here. In 20 13th

Boris Berezovsky did die.

Evidence

pointed to suicide, but others

believe something else. The early

story about the assassination

attempt at him made us few friends.

When we ran the story saying that

MI5 believed that Litvinenko had

been killed by Russian intelligence

and that they had tried to kill

Boris Berezovsky as well, we came

under pressure. Whitehall officials

tried to persuade us not to run the

story and when we did, Downing

Street disowned it and the Russian

media attacked us for trying to

damage a reset in relations between

Gordon Brown and the then Russian

President. What all that showed was

the kind of conflict there is

between those in the British

Government who want to counter

illegal Russian state activity in

this country and those who would

prefer business to carry on as

usual. The death of another Russian

businessman in Surrey also produced

allegations of foul play. The police

were accused of failing to

investigate properly and the

government of wanting to avoid a

row. But now there is the case of Mr

Skripal and of evidence of Russian

involvement grows, it will mark a

significant change in its relations

with the UK.

It is an extraordinary

ard joys of victim, it does not just

break the rules, it is an entirely

new game if they are doing this. Mr

Skripal was off the board, he was

living under his own name, he had

been swapped out of Russia, he was

not adopting any kind of public

profile, so this is a breeze in full

on challenge to Britain if Russia is

indeed behind this attempted murder.

These factors do not make you doubt

it was some sort of Russian

operation.

It is very hard to

spring, if Russian is behind it it

means they are taking things to a

whole new level. This is perfect

declaration of war to bomb of

someone like that if they did it. It

makes me wonder whether it is for

domestic consumption, they have not

thought through the foreign policy,

do they really want to destroy

relations with Britain and the West,

because that is what will happen if

it turns out this was

state-sponsored murder.

Traders will kick the bucket, trust

me.

He even referred to the man sent

to assassinate Trotsky. Just

rhetoric, or state policy. The

investigation in Wiltshire may soon

give us an indication.

Earlier I spoke to the Conservative

MP Tom Tugenhadt, chair

of the Foreign Affairs Select

Committee.

Was Boris Johnson right

to all but point the finger

at the Russian State?

Well look, I don't think he did

on this particular instance,

but what he did do was point

to a pattern and he is

absolutely right to do that.

Because there is a pattern.

We have seen it in Montenegro,

we have seen it in London

with Litvinenko's murder.

You know, we have seen this,

time and again, where Russian agents

have gone to foreign countries

and used murder as a

means of state policy.

And it is completely unacceptable.

So, do you believe then, that Russia

was involved in this attack,

if indeed it was an attack?

Well look, I don't think he did

on this particular instance,

Well, I don't know at this stage.

All I am saying is, it fits

a pattern, and that raises

enormous amounts of concern.

The Russian response today says,

it looks like the script

of an anti-Russian campaign has

already been written.

Well, look, the job

of the Russian Embassy is to defend

the interests of the Russian state,

including by desimulating

and using stories, when the truth

does not fit and they have been very

good at that over a number of years

and it does not surprise me

at all but they are saying that

sort of thing.

Sometimes, if it looks like a duck

and it quacks like a duck,

it might just be a duck and in this

case, we have got a poisoning,

we have got a Russian

former intelligence chief,

who defects to the West

and we have now got him

and his daughter in a comatose state

on a bench in Salisbury.

It does somehow fit that pattern.

But do you think that by and large,

the UK has been soft on Russia

and the people that get

to come here?

Look, I think, actually, one thing

that the Foreign Secretary has been

very clear on is the reality

of Russian threatening behaviour,

the malign influence, as he put it,

of Moscow over the last

couple of years.

We have seen that influence

by the way in places like Georgia,

where they have invaded and we have

seen it in Ukraine,

where they changed a European border

by force for the first time

since the Second World War,

by seizing Crimea.

We have seen it in our close ally,

Estonia, where they kidnapped

an Estonian official a couple

of years ago and used cyber attacks

on the economy in 2007.

And so we have seen this pattern

before, what we now need

to see is a harsher,

a more targeted response to Russian

officials who are doing

this and we can do it.

This is why I am so pleased

that the government has passed

an act, we could do a little bit

more to tighten it.

I think that the criminal

financing act that has been

going through the Commons

at the moment is a very important

act, and I would like to see

unexplained wealth orders,

the sort of thing that are regularly

used against ordinary criminals

in the United Kingdom,

used against oligarchs who are pawns

of the Kremlin Mafia regime.

Part of the reason I called

the urgent question

in Parliament today was to give

the Foreign Secretary

the opportunity, that he then very

clearly took, which was to call out

Russia for the malign influence

that she has become in the world.

This is an absolute...

The problem is that then

you have Boris Johnson,

sound and fury, signifying what?

Removal of a couple of officials

from the World Cup?

That is why I am calling

on the government to do more.

I am calling on the government

to use, as I say, unexplained wealth

orders to hit these guys where it

hurts, in the bank balance

and to make sure that they cannot

own property, they cannot move

through our cities, that they cannot

start buying up our assets

as they have been doing.

But I think we can even go further.

We have got two Russian propaganda

channels which are operating

from the United Kingdom,

one based in Edinburgh.

We need to be absolutely

robust and make sure

that they are absolutely complying

with their Ofcom licenses,

which somehow, given

that the way that they report,

strikes me as extremely unlikely.

And I think we need to be absolutely

robust in making sure that the rules

apply absolutely firmly to them.

Do you actually think

that we should ban those stations?

Well, if we can prove

that they are what they certainly

seem to be, then yes,

I think we should.

I see no reason why we should

allow the propagation

of information warfare,

because that is actually what it is.

I know it is politely called fake

news, it isn't fake news,

it is information warfare.

We should call it what it is

and we should stop it.

Very briefly, to this case,

have we let this man down?

I don't know the details of this

case and I am afraid

I cannot comment on it.

What we must do is to make sure,

if there is Russian state collusion

in this, we must make sure

that the response is absolutely

clear and robust and that may mean

expelling some officials,

it may mean sanctioning some

individuals, but it should

certainly mean making sure

that the United Kingdom is not able

to be used by oligarchs and Kremlin

lackeys to launder their stolen

and ill-gotten gains.

Tom Tugenhat, thank you very

much for joining us.

Thank you.

We asked to speak to the Russian

government but no one was available.

I'm joined by Lord McDonald

QC who was director

of Public Prosecutions at the time

of the Litvinenko murder,

and Baroness Pauline Neville Jones

who was Security and Counter

Terrorism minister under

David Cameron, when Theresa May

was Home Secretary.

Good evening. When this happened in

Salisbury everyone automatically

thought about Alexander Litvinenko.

It took so long to resolve that

case. Do you think that the response

of the UK Government was wanting?

It

did take a long time, at the CPS

with quite quickly announced we

thought there was a strong case

against Andrei Lugovoi and he should

be extradited to stand trial in

London for the murder of Alexander

Litvinenko. But the enquiry

concluded that Andrei Lugovoi was

responsible and another man as well

and it was a Russian state execution

which we had also strongly suspected

and indicated we suspect it. And

also in the view of Sir Roberts,

President Putin had almost certainly

known about this execution. So it

took a long time although we got

there in the end. I hope enquiry

into this case will be swifter in

coming to conclusions whatever they

might be.

You are a minister at the

Home Office

Home Office when Mrs Litvinenko was

trying to get justice, seven years

to get the enquiry, not a great

result.

And this time it has got to

be faster, no doubt about that.

But

you regret that she had to spend all

that time pushing against Tories may

do did not want to grant an enquiry.

We should learn from past mistakes

and we need to do something faster

and more conclusive. But what has

now happened, and obviously we must

wait to discover what has happened

to this man, but I think we are now

confronting a much bigger question

about our relationship with Russia.

And that is where government policy

now needs to focus.

Buzzfeed, the

news service, plotted 14 different

deaths and some may have been

suspicious, some not. But in those

cases do you think that we did not

do enough to prioritise them?

Looking into them? Well I would want

to take them one by one and in the

absence of having done the work of

that kind I'm not prepared to

pronounce on that. But I think we

have a great deal now of evidence

about our relationship with Russia

and Russian behaviour towards the

West.

On that point of those 14

possible cases of possible state

involvement by the Russians, did we

not take this seriously enough,

happy to move to ideas perhaps of

suicide or natural causes. We did

not drill down for various reasons?

These are 14 individual cases and

they must be looked at individually.

What we do know with the Litvinenko

case is the Russian state is

perfectly capable of ordering the

execution on British streets of

British citizen under the protection

of the British state why the foulest

mood. We know they are capable of

that. We have to see what the result

of the toxicology test is but if it

turns out that this man and his

daughter were poisoned as a result

of direction from the Russian state

that would indicate the Russian

state itself is lawless and would

make a catastrophic turning in our

relations with Russia.

The Russians

are denying any involvement and

recently President Putin talked

about the fact that something like

400 spies were apprehended in Russia

in 2017. So a very dangerous

business on both sides.

Very

dangerous and that is why the

response of the British Government

has to be particularly carefully

calibrated. But we can't have

foreign governments organising

assassinations on British streets

particularly when the mechanism used

is so dangerous to so many people

and the individuals being murdered

are under the protection of our

state. It is not possible for a

state to retain his dignity and

permit that kind of conduct to take

faith without a very robust

response.

You were security and

countered terrorism minister in 2010

when the spy swap took place, Mr

Skripal was involved in that. There

was a programme of rejection but did

we let him down?

We will need to

look into that. On the face of it it

would appear that whatever the

protection was it was not adequate.

Whether the indications of his

security status were such you did

not need to do what appear should

have been necessary, what we now

need to do is a full protection of

unenhanced kind to anyone who may be

in the same situation.

Edward Lucas

said if this is indeed a

state-sponsored killing then we are

in a completely different footing

with Russia, that we have never been

on a four foot up I would not quite

put it so dramatically but I think

it marks the point where we do need

to change policy.

I do think so.

What we now have to do and not

something the UK does by itself,

what has happened here could happen

in any European or any democratic

society. So we need a long-term

strategy of the kind that we have

not actually thought we needed

really since the Cold War. And we

need something where we put the

proposition to the Russians on one

hand we will defend and detain you

add on the other hand we will engage

on conditions. And we need to

formulate that as Europeans and with

the help of the Americans.

Thank you

both.

Coming up in the programme...

If you look at social media you see

hundreds of videos and you need to

know where and when each bits of

evidence have been recorded.

The

architects turned forensic sleuths.

Following the crash

of 2008, the word banker

was akin to an insult

and in the intervening decade

there hasn't been

a discernible improvement

in their social standing.

And sometimes people make no

distinction between the behaviour

of individual banks and the Bank

of England itself.

So tonight as part of an effort

better to reflect the concerns

of the country, the Bank of England

announced that it is setting up

Citizen's Reference Panels in every

region to help inform the decisions

of the Bank itself.

No training in Economics

will be necessary -

in fact it might be a positive

disadvantage - and members will be

as diverse as is humanly possible

which is more than you can say

about the Bank of England itself.

Take the most important committee -

the Monetary Policy Committee -

8 members are white men,

one member is female.

The make-up of the Financial Policy

Committee is even more male.

Its members are almost

exclusively white men,

and there is just one woman.

Add to that, of 67 most

senior roles in the Bank,

just eight are held by women,

according to FT analysis.

I talked to the Bank's Chief

Economist Andy Haldane

about that record.

But first I asked if people

just stopped trusting

the Bank of England,

bankers, and economists

following the crash.

I get the frustration that has

flowed from the crisis.

It was a big one.

It affects everyone's lives.

And it still is, even ten years

on wages are still pretty flat,

I get the frustration.

But what we haven't seen

from the public, and thank

heavens we haven't seen it,

is a complete rejection

of the importance of these issues

and of understanding them.

One of the things we can do

as the bank is to try

and improve their understanding

and indeed our understanding

of those issues as well.

Well, the RSA report suggests

a regional citizens reference panel.

Are you going to agree to that?

Yes, we are.

We are.

So we have a whole slew

of initiatives over the course

of the last several years to reach

further, to speak to

a broader set of society.

But what we've said today

is that in the light

of the RSA recommendations,

we have listened, we have thought

carefully about how best

to take the next rung,

if you like, up

the engagement ladder.

And that will mean putting

in place a comprehensive

set of citizens panels,

regionally, using

that agency network.

So across class, diversity, age?

Across all the key dimensions.

Because we want as wide an angle

lens on how the economy

and financial system

is doing as possible.

And these councils are one extra

means of doing that.

Engaging with a cohort of society

that traditionally the bank and most

others have not done.

I wonder how much the Bank

of England truly can reflect

the population when your gender pay

gap is so bad and when your

representation is so bad?

On the Monetary Policy Committee

eight of the nine members are men,

12 of the 13 members

on the financial policy committee

are men and there is very little

ethnic diversity in both.

We need to do better.

We have been absolutely clear

about that on all of the dimensions

of diversity including gender,

including ethnicity and including

the broader dimensions of diversity,

which means thought

and background and experience.

And to some extent these citizens

councils I mentioned can be part

of the answer in bringing different

sort of experiences to the table.

But they can be a human shield?

There are no human shield.

Because I'm just going to throw

another one at you.

In terms of senior female employees,

on average they and 24% less

In terms of senior female employees,

on average they earn 24% less

per hour than male counterparts

at the Bank of England,

according to your first

gender pay gap report.

67 of the most senior roles

in the Bank of England,

eight are held by women.

Yes.

I mean, how quickly

are you going to turn that round?

Well, we have now targets, on both

the gender and ethnicity side,

that will take us to a better place.

Because the place we start is not

remotely where we want to be.

We are absolutely clear that yes,

we are on the case,

and we will make a difference.

You know, my background is different

than many people here.

Sometimes that has meant,

you know, being here is not

entirely straightforward.

In what way?

Well, you know, I was probably one

of the first vintages that didn't go

to Oxford or Cambridge.

That didn't go to a public school.

That might come at things

from slightly different angles.

The bank I joined might not

have value that is much

The bank I joined might not

have valued that is much

as the Bank of England today.

So people look around and they think

where are we going to put

money, we get nothing

in the banks particularly.

A bit worried about

stocks and shares.

We will try something new,

we will try a crypto currency.

And Mark Carney has talked

about that possible anarchy,

with no regulation.

I mean, does the bank think

that crypto currencies

are essentially dangerous?

There are lots of potential risks.

One of which is the danger

to the consumer from

buying into this stuff.

Yes.

Andrew Bailey, head

of the Financial Conduct Authority,

has made clear consumers need

to look before they leap.

Very carefully, when it comes

to all matters crypto.

They are not yet of a scale,

less than 1% of global wealth,

that would lead us to conclude

I think that they pose

a systemwide threat.

They won't bring down the banks,

not least because the banks

are much better capitalised

than they were a decade ago.

When things grow rapidly,

whether it is unsecured

debt or crypto currency,

we keep a careful eye.

Would you ever buy into a crypto

currency personally,

as a little flutter?

I think not.

I'm afraid I'm a chronically

risk averse investor.

And far be it from me

to offer any independent

financial advice to anyone.

Finally, do you think

in the coming, say three decades,

we are going to have to really

rethink the nature of work

and what work means in our society,

the connection between work and pay?

We are.

In the past 300 years we have

sort of stapled together

the notion of work and pay.

Work need not

necessarily involve pay.

Voluntary work is still work

and with the rise of the robots,

we might find more work taking

a voluntary form.

As well as requiring skills,

you know, social skills.

Interpersonal skills, negotiation,

relationship holding, empathy.

Sympathy.

Much more of the world of work

will I think in future draw upon not

just our heads and our hands

but also our hearts.

The key point here is that we have

dealt historically with industrial

revolutions by putting in place

new frameworks and new institutions.

All revolutions bring new jobs

and this will be no different.

Andrew Haldane, thank you very much.

Thank you, Kirsty.

They're a team of sleuths

who use sophisticated

technology to crack crimes -

but they're not an elite

squad of detectives.

In fact, they're architects,

and they operate out

of a London college.

Forensic Architecture,

as they're known, analyse social

media data to investigate possible

human rights abuses and war crimes

on behalf of victims,

charities and activist groups.

They decline to work

for governments and the police,

but they insist they follow

where the evidence leads them.

Ahead of an exhibition

of their work opening

at the ICA in London tomorrow,

Forensic Architecture have been

talking about their work

to Stephen Smith.

This is where art meets activism.

Believe it or not, this is a visual

expression of data harvested

from technology such as mobile

phones and cameras.

It's the raw material used

in an emerging discipline known

as Forensic Architecture.

From this office at Goldsmiths

College in London this team's

retained by charities and human

rights groups to investigate

alleged crimes and abuses.

Are they sure they're architects?

We consider ourselves investigators

and definitely there is an aspect

there that is quite thrilling

in terms of figuring

out what has happened.

The team's been working for a German

NGO which has been accused of people

smuggling in the Mediterranean.

Italian prosecutors have claimed

these images showed the NGO

was towing a craft to the Libyan

coast to collect migrants.

Forensic Architecture analysed

the movements of waves in the wind

and claim this casts doubt

on the prosecutor's argument.

Although the case is ongoing.

What this shows is that the boat

was actually being towed,

let's say perpendicular

to the direction of the waves.

Then the second thing that we did

was compare this analysis

with wind data from that day.

And so what you see here is that

once you put this image

with the north on top,

the boat was being towed

actually North West.

And not South as alleged

by Italian prosecutors.

You follow the evidence and the data

where it leads, presumably.

And if this had suggested

that the NGO was at fault

in some way, you would have

revealed that, too?

Well, of course.

I mean, you know, we just

like basing our analysis

on the materials that we have

and we follow the evidence,

let's say, right?

Yes.

The modern battlefield

or war zone is often urban

and surveyed by social media.

As an exhibition of their work opens

at the ICA, Forensic Architecture

say they scour this data

to challenge official government

or military accounts

of controversial incidents.

If you look simply at social

media you'd see hundreds

and hundreds and hundreds

of videos posted online.

They provide a lot of material,

but not always more clarity.

In order to gain clarity you need

to start composing a story.

You need to know where

and when each one of those bits

of evidence was recorded.

And therefore you can start

combining them and tell

a story of that day.

Governments have approached Forensic

Architecture for their help.

They always say no.

Governments have enough means

to undertake investigations,

complex investigations.

They don't need our

help in that way.

Civil society groups,

human rights groups,

communities who have been perfect

fit, I'm looking for,

communities who have been

affected, I'm looking for,

they are needing our help.

That presumably doesn't make

you too popular with some

quite powerful people?

Yes, I don't think we seek to be

popular with those groups.

But we believe that civil

society needs independent

means of investigation.

It is not good enough for us

to simply call for an independent

enquiry or investigation.

We actually believe that right now

with the technology that we have

and with a wealth of material that

emerges out of conflict zones

and areas where human rights

violations are being undertaken,

that we have the evidence to

undertake investigations ourselves.

Working from leaked photographs

of the crime scene,

we constructed a digital model

of the Internet cafe.

The team investigated a racist

murder in an Internet cafe

in Germany, recreating the scene

to try and establish

what exactly those present

would have seen and heard.

Their evidence was submitted

to Parliamentary inquiries.

Whatever this art exhibition is,

it's a long way from

old Masters and sunflowers.

I think although it is strong

in art, the ICA has always been also

a place for counterculture

to the official narratives.

So therefore if you call it activism

or look at contemporary culture

through a political eye,

the Institute of contemporary

Art since its founding

in 1947 by Herbert Read,

was always a political,

engaged and outspoken organisation.

Few could have imagined

that the data generated

by smartphones and ubiquitous

cameras would lead to

the extraordinary practice

of Forensic Architecture.

Steve Smith. The front pages. The

Telegraph, Vladimir Putin swore

revenge on the Russian spy.

revenge on the Russian spy. Then

moving onto Guardian.

moving onto Guardian. Neighbours say

the man gave no hint of his past in

espionage. Enquiries stepped up as

the Foreign Secretary warns the

Kremlin. Moving on to the sun.

That's it for tonight.

We leave you with a trip to one

of the diving world's

most beautiful spots,

Manta Point in Tahiti.

According to Rich Horner

who filmed himself there,

this was recorded on Saturday.

See if you can spot an actual Manta.

Goodnight.